Chords
The m7 chord, in every key
The minor seventh is the chord jazz moves through — the ii in front of every V, three of the seven chords of any major key. This page holds every drop-2 shape of it: twelve fingerings across three string sets, each one playable, re-spelled and re-fingered for whichever root you pick.
Four notes, one soft sound
An m7 chord is a minor triad with the minor seventh stacked on top: C, E♭, G and B♭ — degrees 1, ♭3, 5 and ♭7. Where the maj7 tucks its seventh a half step under the octave root and shimmers, the m7 leaves a relaxed whole step there: no rub, no urgency, a round sound that is equally content to sit still or to move on. You will see the same quality written m7, min7 or −7; they all mean these four notes.
Two of the four do the talking: the ♭3 makes it minor, and the ♭7 makes it a seventh chord. Those two are the guide tones; the root names the chord and the fifth fills it out. And the m7 earns its keep by sheer frequency: harmonize a major scale in seventh chords and three of the seven — the ii, the iii and the vi — come out m7, more than any other quality gets. Whatever tune is on the stand, this chord is in it.
Pick a root
Everything below follows this selector. Pick a root and the cards re-finger to the nearest workable frets, the note names re-spell the way the new root demands, and the progression links at the bottom re-point to the right keys. The order is the circle of fifths, the app's own — stepping one chip to the right moves everything up a fifth.
On the top four strings
The top four strings — D, G, B and e — are where comping mostly lives: clear of the bass register, quick to speak. This is the set the practice pages' voice-led progressions use. The four inversions climb the neck in order of their top note — the same ladder the app's Learn screen shows — and one of them is the classic one-finger m7: all four strings barred at a single fret. With E as the root, that barre slides all the way down and becomes the open top four strings.
On the middle four
One set down — A, D, G and B — the same chord sits lower and rounder, still clear enough to comp with. The four inversions ladder up the neck here too. And where the maj7 hides one five-fret stretch on each of its lower sets, the m7 never reaches: every grip on this page fits four frets end to end.
On the bottom four
On E, A, D and G the voicing turns dark. Four close voices this low can blur — the same register problem that makes a six-string barre chord collide with a bass player — so these grips earn their keep in solo playing, or when nobody else is holding the low end.
Every sound on this page is the Drop2 app's own sampled guitar and bass — from the MuseScore General sound library, used under the MIT license.
The top note picks the shape
Four inversions are not four flavors of the same choice; each puts a different chord tone on top, and the top note is what a listener follows. Root position carries the ♭3 — E♭ — on top. First inversion carries the 5th, G; second inversion the ♭7, B♭; third inversion the root itself. Comping under a melody, choose the shape whose top note is the note you want heard. Moving between chords, choose the one nearest your hand — each voice taking its shortest path is the whole craft of voice leading, and it is why the practice pages' progressions barely move between grips.
The 6 chord in the mirror
On the maj7 page, three cards change their name to 6: the third inversion puts the seventh at the bottom and the root on top, a minor ninth apart, and the shape trades its seventh for the sixth to lose the sting. Nothing of the sort happens here. The m7's root and seventh sit a whole step apart, so even with the ♭7 at the bottom the root above it lands a comfortable major ninth away — all twelve cards keep their name.
But the 6 chord still reaches this page, from the other side. Cm7 and the 6 chord of its relative major are the same four notes: read C, E♭, G and B♭ from the ♭3 upward and they become root, third, fifth and sixth — E♭6. The match is literal on the fretboard: the root-position grip in each group above is, fret for fret, the 6 card the maj7 page draws for the relative major. Which chord you are actually playing is decided by the bass: the same four strings say Cm7 over C and E♭6 over E♭ — and the with-bass button under each card lets you hear this page's side of it.
Twelve fingerings, fewer sounds
Twelve cards, but fewer chords than that: from this root, the twelve fingerings make seven distinct sounds. The guitar repeats itself — the same four pitches recur on different string sets, at different heights up the neck — and every recurrence is in the cards above. Bottom note first, the duplicates right now are:
- E♭ B♭ C G — Top 4 · 1st inversion, Mid 4 · 1st inversion, Bottom 4 · 1st inversion
- G C E♭ B♭ — Top 4 · 2nd inversion, Mid 4 · 2nd inversion
- B♭ E♭ G C — Mid 4 · 3rd inversion, Bottom 4 · 3rd inversion
- C G B♭ E♭ — Mid 4 · root position, Bottom 4 · root position
This is worth a minute of disbelief with the play buttons: the grips look nothing alike, and the notes are the same. It also shrinks the job. Learn where the seven sounds live and the twelve fingerings become routes to them — when a chart calls for this chord, the useful fingering is whichever sits nearest your hand.
Where the m7 does its work
Shapes are only half a chord; the other half is what it does in a progression. Two qualities appear in all five forms on the practice pages, and they are the two halves of the ii–V: the dominant that pushes, and this chord — the ii that winds the push up. The m7 is that ii in four of the five forms, always in the key a whole tone below its root; it is the home chord of the minor ii–V–i; and in rhythm changes it doubles as the iii. From the root selected above, Cm7 is:
- the ii of the major ii–V–I in B♭
- the ii of the jazz blues in B♭
- the i of the minor ii–V–i in C minor
- the ii of the turnaround in B♭
- the ii of rhythm changes in B♭
- the iii of rhythm changes in A♭
Each link opens that practice page already set to the key in question, band ready to loop. If you want the m7's job in one sound, take the major ii–V–I and listen to the first bar lean into the second — tension gathering, then the V spending it.
Where Drop2 comes in
These twelve shapes are the m7 slice of what the Drop2 app teaches — and given how often the chord comes up, the slice that pays off soonest. Learn lays the shapes out the way this page does, every quality, inversion and string set in the same degree colors; Train turns them into a drill — it calls out a voicing, you find it, and the app checks by ear, through the microphone, that the strings said what you meant. Play-Along, part of Premium, then puts the band from the practice pages behind you while you comp the changes yourself.
Free to start, no time limit · Works with acoustic and electric guitar
Next: All the chord pages →